Wednesday, December 27, 2006

People who perform composition are called composers. Useful skills in composition include writing musical notation, instrumentation, and handling musical ensembles. The definition of composition has broadened to include extensive techniques such as improvisation, musical montage, preparing instruments, using non-traditional objects or methods of sound production, and make music from silence, as John Cage famously did.

Compositional techniques are the methods used to create music. In discussing the structure or association of a musical work, the "composition" of that work is generally called its musical form. These techniques draw a parallel to art's formal elements. Sometimes, the entire form of a piece is through-composed, meaning that each part is different, with no repetition of sections; other forms include strophic, rondo, verse-chorus, etc. Some pieces are composed around a set scale, where the compositional technique might be measured the usage of a particular scale. Others are composed during performance; techniques are sometimes used, however, in this case also.

Monday, December 18, 2006

An avalanche is a slide of a large snow down a mountainside, caused when a buildup of snow is released downward a slope, and is one of the major dangers faced in the mountains in winter. An avalanche is an example of a gravity present consisting of granular material.

In an avalanche, lots of material or mixtures of dissimilar types of material fall or slide rapidly under the force of gravity. Avalanches are often classified by what they are made of, for example snow, ice, rock or soil avalanches. A combination of these would be called a debris avalanche.

A large avalanche can run for many miles, and can create massive demolition of the lower forest and anything else in its path. For example, in Montroc, France, in 1999 300,000 cubic meters of snow slid on a 30 degree slope, achieving a speed of 100 km/h. It killed 12 people in their chalets under 100,000 tons of snow, 5 meters deep. The Mayor of Chamonix was convicted of second-degree murder for not evacuating the area, but received a suspended sentence.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that mainly focuses on weather processes and forecasting. Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events which light up and are explained by the science of meteorology. Those events are bound by the variables that exist in Earth's atmosphere. They are temperature, pressure, water vapor, and the gradients and relations of each variable, and how they change in time. The majority of Earth's observed weather is situated in the troposphere.

Meteorology, climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry are sub-disciplines of the atmospheric sciences. Meteorology and hydrology comprise the interdisciplinary field of hydrometeorology. Although the term meteorology is used today to explain a sub discipline of the atmospheric sciences, Aristotle's work is more general. The work touches upon much of what is known as the earth sciences. In his own words: All the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts. One of the most impressive achievements in Meteorology is his description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle.

Now the sun, moving as it does, the set up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapor and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Rome is the capital city of Italy and of the Lazio province, as well as the country's major and most crowded comune, with concerning 2.5 million residents. It is situated in the central-western portion of the Italian peninsula, where the river Aniene joins the Tiber. As one of the prime cities in the European Union, the Comune di Roma has a gross domestic creation of €97 billion in the year 2005, equal to 6.7% of Italy's GDP the highest quantity of GDP produced by any single Italian comune. The current Mayor of Rome is Walter Veltroni.

According to fairy tale, the city of Rome was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus on April 21, 753 BC. Archeological proof supports claims that Rome was inhabited since the 8th century BC and earlier. The city was the support of Roman civilization that shaped the largest and longest-lasting empire of classical antiquity that reached its maximum extent in 117. The city was essential and in charge for the spread of Greco-Roman culture that endures to this day. Rome is also recognized with Christianity and the Catholic Church and has been the Episcopal seat of the Popes since the 1st century. The State of the Vatican City, the monarch territory of the Holy See and smallest nation in the world, is an enclave of Rome.